At this stage of Jozy Altidore’s second season in the Premier League, you have to ponder which of his spells were worse — his season at Hull City or this current season with Sunderland. The young American striker has only scored one goal in the league for the Black Cats.

Up until this point, Sunderland manager Gus Poyet has been incredibly patient and supportive of Altidore, but the striker paid the price for his poor performances of late by not being included in the League Cup Final squad against Manchester City.

Since then, Altidore has remained positive in training and has played in the first team for Sunderland while Steven Fletcher has been injured, but the rubber will meet the road this Monday when Sunderland hosts West Ham United in a must-win relegation match.

Looking ahead to this weekend’s match, here’s what Gus Poyet told The Shields Gazette newspaper about Jozy Altidore’s current situation at the club

“I think Jozy has been finding it difficult for a number of reasons. It is a mixture of how we have been playing, of the position he has been playing and just the fact that it hasn’t been running for him.“It’s the way football goes sometimes too – sometimes you make a run to the front post and the ball goes to the back, then you make a run to the back post and the ball goes to the near post. It can happen time and time again and then you get paranoid and start thinking is it happening on purpose?

“But you can just have runs where you’re in roughly the right area but the ball just won’t drop to you, and I think Jozy has suffered a bit of that.”

“With Jozy, it has been hard for him. It was a great challenge for him to come back to England, to prove he could be better second time around than first.

“There’s nothing that can be done about the season so far and the games that have gone, so what Jozy has to do is to accept that and look to finish the season strongly in the games he’s involved in.”

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